1
as in to pretend
to present a false appearance of
he dissembled happiness at the news that his old girlfriend was getting married—to someone else
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2
as in to dissimulate
to take on a false or deceptive appearance
children learn to dissemble at a surprisingly early age
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of dissemble
You’d like your government to tell you the truth, and the government dissembled repeatedly after the raid about what the rules of engagement were.
—
Aryeh Neier, The New York Review of Books, 3 Mar. 2025
Pushing back on reporters, at the time Scher often dissembled and appeared to brush aside concerns about what was clearly an increasingly out-of-control situation.
—Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 19 July 2024
That same week, Altman made headlines at a Senate hearing by asking to be regulated — wowing senators who were more accustomed to tech CEOs dissembling or responding evasively to questions.
—Brian Fung, CNN, 14 Feb. 2024
That year, with 23,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, the administration was still dissembling about the American role in the war.
—Trip Gabriel, New York Times, 2 Feb. 2024
See All Example Sentences for dissemble
Aryeh Neier, The New York Review of Books, 3 Mar. 2025
Pushing back on reporters, at the time Scher often dissembled and appeared to brush aside concerns about what was clearly an increasingly out-of-control situation.
—Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 19 July 2024
That same week, Altman made headlines at a Senate hearing by asking to be regulated — wowing senators who were more accustomed to tech CEOs dissembling or responding evasively to questions.
—Brian Fung, CNN, 14 Feb. 2024
That year, with 23,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, the administration was still dissembling about the American role in the war.
—Trip Gabriel, New York Times, 2 Feb. 2024
See All Example Sentences for dissemble
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dissemble
Verb
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Words like that carry generations of pain, and pretending otherwise only keeps the cycle going.—
Lisa Respers France,
CNN Money,
3 Nov. 2025
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Prosecutors said Montejano pretended to be a teenage boy on Snapchat, asked the girls to meet him in a public area at the apartment complex before forcing the girls into his apartment.—
Rosalio Ahumada,
Sacbee.com,
3 Nov. 2025
Verb
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Such an ambitious agenda assumes a counterpart who is either inclined or compelled to cooperate.—
Neil Thomas,
Time,
29 Oct. 2025
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From there, Olympian water polo player Ashleigh Johnson assumes the roles of beloved figures such as Prince, Tommie Smith, Serena Williams, and Amanda Gorman as Public Enemy’s members trade bars over a rambunctious guitar loop.—
Andre Gee,
Rolling Stone,
29 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Lincoln Lab teams are currently using that creative power to fill gaps in weather data, spot anomalies in network traffic, and design new materials and medicines by simulating chemical interactions that would historically take months in a physical lab.—
Chelsea Haney
October 30,
New Atlas,
30 Oct. 2025
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The limits of logic To test whether this informational foundation could be simulated, the team relied on mathematical principles, including Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.—
Aamir Khollam,
Interesting Engineering,
30 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Dissemble.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dissemble. Accessed 6 Nov. 2025.
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